“Questionable.”
She pressed her fingers against the side of his neck, where the pulse rate, he thought, was probably still rather high.
“Rest,” she said. “I could give you a drug. But one advises not.”
“If it keeps me going—”
“Better to rest. You may need it later.”
“I need more time,” he said, “in a gym, Jago-ji. I am going to do thatc when we get back.”
He won a slight smile from her, and with a little bow of her head: “I shall go up to a better vantage, Bren-ji. I shall not be leaving you.”
“Tano and Algini,” he said.
“They may overtake us here. The boy will probably be somewhat behind them.”
So the boy was coming. Alone. God. He hadn’t wanted that.
“Rest,” Jago said, and stepped up onto the rock, and onto another, and left his field of vision.
At that point, it was his job just to sit there. And breathe. And let blood circulate back to parts of his brain he was sure were not functioning all that well. His feet hurt. Badly. He had burst a couple of stitches in the lightweight dress boots that were all he had with him, which was not a good situation. And he was lost. As lost as he had ever been in his life. He had absolutely no idea where they were, or even what direction they were going at the moment—
west, he thought, and then wasn’t sure, given the season and the latitude. He could judge where the sun would be, behind the rocks, but he couldn’t see it from where he was sitting. It seemed they had not aimed due northwest, which would have taken them to Targai. But that could be an accident of where they had stopped, or the route they had to take, since they had wound around so many obstacles it had seemed they were going in circles.
They were still on the Southern Plateau, he was almost sure of that. They hadn’t been descending that long. They wouldn’t be descending northeast, toward the coast—that would only put them back in danger.
If they were ever out of it.
He was dizzy, still. Orientation in the world? He was doing damned well to orient himself upright.
He still thought that if he could just get rid of the vest, and its constriction, he could go faster.
But Jago would shoot him herself if she came back and found him sitting there in his shirt sleeves.
So he sat. He sat with the spring chill of the rock working its way up his backside and the warmth of the sun and the heavy vest working its way down from his shoulders, for a reasonable meeting somewhere in the middle of him: his chest hurt and his backside was numb. He let his eyes shut, just drowsing upright. Best he could do.
He wiggled his feet to be sure they still worked. He thought about Najida, and the bath that he was going to have when he got home, and his own bed. Breakfast.
Eggs and toast. Hot tea. He could do with that.
When he got there.
15
« ^ »
All the house was supposed to be at formal breakfast, after the one they had already had and shouldn’t admit to. Cajeiri and Veijico and Antaro had been on the way, in the hall and headed for the dining room, all dressed and proper. A little toast and tea would not suffice for the whole morning, and Cajeiri had told his aishid to take turns going for a proper breakfast themselves. He was sure they had been awake long enough to be hungry all over again.
But Jegari, who had gone to the security room, intercepted them halfway down the hall, with a low-voiced, breathless, “Nandi, there is open warbroken out in Taisigi district. Your great-grandmother and Cenedi-nadi and Lord Geigi are in conference, and breakfast is delayed.
They have shut the doors to the dining room and nobody can get in.”
Cajeri took that in for a few seconds, stopped right in mid-hallway, with servants witnessing.
War in Taisigi district.
Where nand’ Bren was.
Where Lucasi also might be.
The shooting meant nand’ Bren was going to have to get out of there. It was a situation far beyond argument and finesse.
“We shall go back to the suite,” he said to them. “Come.”
So they all did. Cajeiri sat down. Everybody did, by the fire. Veijico looked more than generally worried.
“Say,” he said to Jegari. “What do you know, Gari-ji?”
“Nandi, a building was blown up in the outlying district of the Taisigi. No one knows by whom. It was a Taisigi hunting lodge. But nobody knows its current use.
“Second part of the report: Guild from Shejidan is moving in to take out the renegades in Dojisigi, in Senji, in Taisigi, all at the same time. Lord Machigi has disappeared. One of his closest advisors has been assassinated. One of his cousins has fled to the north, presumably seeking refuge with the Dojisigi. But nobody seems to know where Machigi is at all.”
People were moving all over the place. It was chess with Great-grandmother. You had to remember who was where and watch out for pieces that jumped squares.
Only it was no chess game, and it was nothing as limited as a chessboard. It was scary, and nand’ Bren was right in the middle of it.
“Here is what I know, besides,” Jegari said. “There is some sort of trouble at Targai—one suspects the Senji have attacked. Your great-grandmother is discussing this in the dining room, with Cenedi-nadi and the rest, and Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, and even Ramaso-nadi.
Nawari told me it is likely that the same people were behind a lot of mischief in Kajiminda, and even Lord Geigi agrees. The Marid would stay at odds with your father, and that would keep the whole district of the Marid a safe refuge for the illicit operations. That was their plan. And it was not the Taisigi. It was almost certainly not the Taisigi. It was renegades. It was Guild who supported Murini.”
Cajeiri drew a deep breath. He was getting a report. It was a real report, serious business that heactually knew something about. A lot of people had run south when his father had come back and taken the capital. And because they were in the Marid, which was not a lawful place anyway, nobody had much troubled about them being there.
“But they either went too far,” Jegari said. “—Nawari said some could have been low-level tactical operatives given too broad an instruction, or they wanted to start a war. They wanted to take over Lord Machigi’s western operation—and then when nand’ Bren threw them out of Kajiminda, they decided to get Machigi assassinated, because they believed he was going to come down on them. That was when your great-grandmother sent nand’ Bren to warn Machigi and make him an offer.”
“She had Lord Machigi in a corner she could control,” Veijico murmured, sounding impressed. “He was in trouble from both the renegades andthe Guild.”
A lot fell into place—scarily so, because everything these renegades had been doing could have worked, except mani was smart, once she was onto them. Just the fact that Machigi was talking to nand’ Bren was going to scare the northern Marid and the renegades.
Cajeiri recalled all his study of maps. “Machigi’s allies are the two smallest clans in the Marid.”
“Yes,” Veijico said. “And now the two largest may be in the hands of the renegades. The Guild thinks so. But the Guild is moving in.”
And they were blowing up things over in Taisigi territory. The Taisigi were under attack.
He saw things, now. Banichi had told him once, on the ship—to make the enemy use the door you really want, lay down fire on all the others. It was the same thing mani had said to him.
“Mani is very smart,” he said.
And then out of nowhere the worrisome thought came to him that if the legitimate Guild was all concentrating its fire on the Marid, then the only open door for their enemies was here. At Najida. Where an attack could threaten mani and try to get hostages, which was the onlything they could do.
He hoped mani was going to ask his father for a lot of help, fast, none of this waiting around.
Mani would not like to do that, because she hated to admit there was anything she could not settle herself, but it really seemed to him it might be a good idea, very soon, because if all the fighting came their direction, Najida was wide open.